Ten Minute Memoir
by Clan Dragoodle
Summary: Tifa Lockhart wishes she could remember to forget it all.


_I am gonna break you down,_  
_To tiny, tiny, parts._  
_I never believed, but I see it now_  
_I'm learning your lesson, I'm learning your lesson._

_Gun_ by Chvrches

* * *

It was your name he would call at night. Once the embers had smoldered out and the dark took the camp whole, he'd call for you. Remember that? The sound his fingers made against the fabric of your tent as he unconsciously groped for you.

Calling. Begging. Crying. Needing. Pleading. Drowning.

You never said anything. Nor did anyone to you the next morning. But you caught their looks; the disapproving shuffle of Aeris' eyes and the dark bags of Barret's expression.

You helped everyone _but_ him. But that's what the ring is for – to remind you, that eventually, you did help. Or more correctly, that he helped you.

Or he felt sorry.

It's a heavy square cut with a thick band and several smaller gems set along the curve. It doesn't suit you, but you can't remember to tell him that this isn't your style. You don't have the stomach for it. Nor can you even remember that it was him that gave you the ring, though we assume every time that he did.

Every.

Single.

Time.

And you're trained in that assumption, crippled by it, as you flick your reflection in the silver band. You overlook the dimming eyes and wrinkled expression to bask in the emotion -the revelation - of the ring. That _yes_- finally – Cloud Strife had purposed.

The world is ending, but he would marry you.

And you call his name.

And you call his name.

Groping around the memory of the syllables in his name, staring into the darkness and feeling forwards with your voice. And he responded the first hundred – thousand – times you called; finding you lost in your room, gazing in the mirror at an aging complexion.

And you would ask: "Who is that?"

He was handsome those days. I think the sudden responsibility of our situation made him stand a little taller, speak a little louder, and smile a little wider. Even I didn't recognize the ruse. Maybe I just ignored it.

Maybe you would have seen it coming.

There's a picture of his funeral tacked to the door to remind you. You're standing in the frame and appear to be reading the headstone. You don't look like that anymore and that scares you sometimes.

You'll wake up to find this strange woman examining your ring, trying to pry it from your fingers, but you'll fight and thrash and cry and hurt yourself.

Eventually the nurses moved the ring to your other hand. It's just a promise on the right; that seemed to help calm you. You probably assume it's always been there. I'm the only one left that remembers the truth.

And in that sense, you're not alone.

Nothing has always been there. That scar running between your breasts, the burns along your forearms – _He _wasn't always there, that's for damn sure. But most recently, the bundle of tissue running the side of your hairline, opening to that defected little brain of yours.

That's really the newest (last) thing you remember.

It's funny because you fell off a mountain and got up. Took that blade through the heart and kept running. Blew yourself and the entire Sector Seven to Tartarus and walked off. Spent _so many _second chances – most that weren't yours.

But one day you tripped.

I know you would laugh, because you find things like karma funny. Justice, or as Vincent defines it: _Vengeance_. You wouldn't mind being trapped like this. _Still better than the gas chambers_, you'd say, probably thankful at your turn of luck.

You deserved a spot of light in the city with no sky. You'd saved the world after-all.

But after that last battle, the airship crash, you hit your head hard enough to cause the doctors to show you several dark screens; your brain displayed in an organic collection of circles with a single, dark, spot in the center. And though you forgot every few moments, you couldn't forget to forget what that dark circle meant. That onyx flower blooming in the center of your brain.

It was their _vengeance_.

But you won't remember this despite how many times you read it. It'll rot, folded neatly in your desk drawer so you can find it for a moment and cry as you run the scar along your hairline before you find the ring on your hand and start calling out for him.

But he won't come this time.

* * *

Tifa opens her eyes, one after the other, to a stretch of plain ceiling tiles. Centered, a single hand-printed sign taped above is large enough to read from her lying position. Somewhere, someone is talking. The sound is muffled.

She focuses her sight and blinks several times before reading the curved handwriting. She reads it once, then again.

"The funeral is in an hour," a man says, speaking in velvet tones.

She takes a look at her room. It's a bland enclosure, constructed of square furniture and muted colors. It's very cold. She pauses to probably notice that she's dressed in a black satin gown, the fabric is thin.

Tifa lies back to examine the above taped sign again. It says, in a neat scrawl: THIS IS A HOSPITAL. THIS IS WHERE YOU LIVE NOW.

"Why don't you take her out for dinner after, she doesn't get out much," a woman says.

"I don't have time."

Tifa find them through the ajar door to her left. Her tall companion is dressed in his red cloak and bent to speak to a nurse.

"Vincent," she exclaims, waving at his familiar face. "Have you heard the news?" She holds up her right hand and the ring sits dull with age. "Where's Cloud?"

Vincent doesn't smile. "He'll be at the funeral."

The nurse shares a sad expression before Tifa blinks and examines the ceiling, confused.

Tifa reads the sign once. Then again.

* * *

You look pretty stupid right now.

Everyone is hunched over in their grief and respect as they lower the casket into the hole, and you, standing straight and turning frantically in confusion before crying again. Over their controlled sobs and hiccups you panic.

The woman next to you, Marlene, grabs your hand tightly to make you stop.

_Stupid_. But then again, they look pretty stupid too, putting a worthless box in the ground.

You probably don't even know whose funeral you're at, do you? It's not Cloud's, so stop blubbering. His grave is just off the back of your heel, but no one bothers to tell you that.

No one likes to bring up suicide.

Or to correct you when you mistake Marlene as Aeris for the fourth time. When you're old, people forgive you for not having common sense. It was just another casualty of your lost memory.

There's a name for it – backwards amnesia, I think, or something so obscure that even I can't recall; which spells trouble for both of us. But as if _living _wasn't hard enough without trying to curse (much less pronounce) our ailment.

But I guess you have time for that sort of thing. You have all the time in the world.

The trees are bare, and you consider a moment that you can't tell if it's early spring or late fall; which is odd, because you remember snow.

Funny how trivial things like seasons are when you're preoccupied with saving the world. And now, with your journey over and the chance at a normal life, you came short. I suppose it's still better than burning out like Cloud though.

Though, you probably wouldn't remember hitting the concrete either. Died on impact is what we were told once. A minute later you were told again. And another minute later you went looking for him.

Maybe to tell him the news:

That he couldn't fill his grief of Aeris in your rewound smiles. That he couldn't survive another Plate jump into a flower girl's lap. That you were _so, incredibly, sorry._

If you _could _remember, I bet you'd blame yourself. Which might prove a positive light in that dark spot in your brain. I don't blame you – I never did – and, in the end, I think you needed someone to tell you that.

You and Cloud were never really different on the inside. He probably had a dark spot in his brain too.

It's Barret's funeral. They've told you six times that it was a mining accident with suffocation and a cave-in. The casket is empty.

But then again, in your mind, it always was.

Can you imagine? Sitting in the darkness to count until you just stopped. Or maybe he was crushed on impact? It really just comes down to if he died like Cloud, or like you.

I don't really know what would be worse.

You, unlike Cloud, still have your pride though. You're enduring this punishment, like Vincent to your left. Barret wouldn't leave without his pride, or if he did, I would never be the one to think so.

He must have died like us.

What an unlucky bastard.

* * *

Tifa blinks again. She turns her head to look at the woman across from her, who blinks. Again.

She averts her eyes before turning on the faucet and beginning to wash her hands. Her ring falls to the porcelain in a loud clatter. She stares down at the band, flicking her eyes to the woman to notice her also staring.

They both stare.

"Tifa are you okay?" It's another woman that speaks, appearing from the side doorway. She's not someone Tifa recognizes, but she smiles and nods at the stranger anyways.

"Your ring fell off," the nurse observes. "Wouldn't want Cloud to think you'd lost it."

Tifa is still smiling and the woman across from her still staring as she picks up the ring and places it on her left hand. "Where is he?" she asks, ignoring the reflection.

"He went to make a delivery. He'll be back in ten minutes," the nurse says, smiling, before she turns and leaves.

And doesn't come back.

They never come back.

* * *

I don't know where your ring is. Chances are that you don't either. Obviously. I'm guessing the nurse does, but you don't know enough to ask. Or maybe you have and the nurse just _forgot _to give it back. It's happened before – not to you, of course. Everything can only happen to you once.

And I suppose there's luck in that. Grace did make the world unfair, and it's been yours to be the once of everything.

Once upon a time you were the damsel in distress and your shinning prince came to the rescue. You saved the world and fell in love. And your memory closed on the 'happily ever after'.

But now you just turn the pages and look at the pictures.

Maybe it's not your brain, maybe it's just you. I'm fine, after all. But we'll never really get to test that theory because you and I can never meet.

I have much _better _things to do, anyway.

I have to trace his features and dust the memories he left us. Ink them in paper for you to lose in your desk and clothing. Eventually, the nurses are going to have enough of it and burn me away in the fireplace downstairs.

Then you'll really be alone.

No one comes to visit us anymore. They're always bustling about the day, ten minutes ahead of you. And you, constantly playing catch-up with people that don't exist. Or, I guess, maybe they once did.

Once upon a time when everything was okay- _survivable_ at the very least. Can you believe it? That the good days are defined by the tyranny of Midgar. Says something about the current ones.

But they lie to themselves. Singing glory about a tireless journey and a heroes well-deserved rest, continuing to wander in the direction of goodness and obligation and responsibility. Bullshit. Where did any of that glory get us but a small, two room, hell with a desk full of someone you wish you could remember?

But they'll continue to rebuild this cesspool because their memory stacks in the conscious and guilt and morality of it all, and they remember that there's this constant, pulsing, karma over their shoulders.

But you and karma can only meet again for the first time.

Maybe one day you'll forget yourself. That dark circle in your brain will eat so far back that your body will finally fail you the way that you failed him. You'll sit, pretty and still on the shelf, and watch the battle you started rage on.

We were never really done fighting. And it's a hard truth to swallow, but just because we'd saved the planet, didn't make us heroes. And just because we weren't heroes, didn't mean we didn't deserve to rest. And just because you can't remember, doesn't mean you don't understand.

And just because there's no reason to cry, doesn't ease the sting of it.

And that's the truth you can't remember to forget.

* * *

Tifa opens her eyes to stare at the page. The paper is crumpled and wet with ink under her hand. She's sitting at a desk, staring down at a bland, neat, scrawl; which she recognizes as her own.

She blinks, and observes to room to notice that she's alone. She reads the particular line twice before she looks around the room again.

She reads the entire page. Then the one behind that. And the one behind that.

The tears begin to sting, falling on the paper and smearing the ink on her frail fingers. "Cloud?" she calls out for him.

Again and again.

Tifa touches the side of her hair, running the length of the scar, before marveling how light her hand is. _Where is my ring_, she considers, holding her left hand up for inspection.

She realizes that the band she never knew existed is gone.

Calmly, she sets her hand again to her pen, dips it in the wet ink, and continues to write.

* * *

**Based on _Memento Mori _by Johnathan Nolan.  
Feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thank you. **


End file.
